Two, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: he had first read the Winchester entry in the Rotherweird Chronicle’s announcement of the Midsummer Play. Oblong had mentioned another version from Worcester that talked of a monster coming to the Midsummer Fayre to ‘wed’. Everyone assumed a Rotherweird damsel under threat of abduction, but he believed they were wrong. The Green Man held the key.
Three, the mixing-point: might Lost Acre’s most dangerous property be its sustaining force? If so, he might require its assistance. Thanks to Ferensen, he knew where to find it.
Four, Ferensen: nobody was saying out loud what some knew and all suspected. Ferensen and Slickstone were old adversaries; Ferensen had lived through Wynter’s rule, trial and death. Ferensen must have entered the mixing-point to live so long – but what other peculiar properties had he acquired? Ferensen’s areas of ignorance also struck him as significant. He could answer questions about the stones and their misuse, but he had been as flummoxed by the midsummer flower as they were, suggesting that Lost Acre had not been under threat in Wynter’s time, or since – indeed, probably not since 1017. So: a millennial threat to be met by a plant that flowered every thousand years?
Five, the frescoes: He recalled the east wall and its explosion of purple, and the disengaged limbs and branches. The priest had dismissed his assumption that the discolouration had been caused by damp. Reflecting now, he recalled that the surface of this part of the wall had been no different. Suppose . . . His theory fitted every strand, but defied belief. He reminded himself of the Universe’s inherent strangeness – the pelican and the climbing rose had emerged from a single cosmic explosion. He had to believe.
He ran through his list with Orelia, whose bubble flew far below him, trapped in the same parabola, omitting nothing but his final theory. ‘Anything to add?’
‘You’re very high, Hayman. You sure this is safe?’
‘Damn safety – I want your thoughts.’
‘I’m convinced the Midsummer Fair is part of this – the place, the timing, the distractions it brings?’
As she spoke, he placed another piece of the jigsaw, as logical and outlandish as the rest.
Orelia changed the subject. ‘To stop Slickstone I need to know what he’s after.’
‘He craves a particular power from the Recipe Book.’
‘But what power? What’s better than lightning? Zeus had lightning.’
Silence. Both realised their lives might be the price of any success.
A brief recital from Paradise Lost stuttered into Orelia’s bubble:
Immortal amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life,
Began to bloom—
—only to be cut off by a crackle of static. Anxiously craning forward she watched Salt’s bubble accelerate, a speck of dirt drawn to a plughole. The analogy proved good. In seconds it had vanished.
*
Ferensen sat outside his tower with only a hurricane lamp for company. Puzzles bred only puzzles. Midsummer’s Eve, and time was running out.
What was Wynter’s last experiment? On whom had he practised it?
How could he save his sister? He had assumed her dead until Salt had arrived some years back with a hideous wound, inflicted in Lost Acre by a monstrous spiderwoman with the gift of language. He had always hoped the stones might separate what they had joined, but Slickstone had the stones and the book. Should he face his sister in her disfigured state? How would she react? What would the spider part of her make-up do?
Last, and perhaps least, what had Wynter and Slickstone placed in the cage with him? All these centuries on, he still did not know.
He felt guilty as well as powerless. He had released the past into the lives of his friends. What chance could they have against Slickstone? He had endangered them, to no purpose.
His musings were interrupted by Panjan alighting on the grass beside him. He released the small tube, which contained a laconic note in Boris’ childlike writing:
Slickstone in, via tile under Gems & Geology, two bubbles launched in search of possible aerial gate.
With the note came the key to Rotherweird Library, courtesy of Gorhambury, and Salt’s tiny map.
Ferensen’s mind cleared. He had to return and take on the old enemy. His first thought was ‘one last time’, but that was untrue; until now he had always ducked the contest – but no more. Morval and his friends deserved no less.
As the redoubtable Panjan headed back with a new message, Ferensen went inside to prepare. He wondered what the bubbles were up to, and where in Lost Acre an aerial gate might open.
9
Old Friends
Sir Veronal arrived in Lost Acre flushed with excitement, finding himself in an underground passage, the walls part earth and part rock. Shelves with bottles and books added a peculiarly domestic touch.
‘Fascinating,’ said Sir Veronal to himself, finding in the books stamps from Rotherweird School and Rotherweird Library on works as diverse as mining, mosaics and cookery and, unexpectedly, a price list from Alizarin & Flake, the artists’ shop in Market
Square.
A long-buried pain also surfaced, the keen edge of unrequited love. He had stooped to offer his hand to a peasant girl, or at least, to the talent she possessed, only to be rejected. He had made her pay, but not enough. He scoffed at the mosaic on the ceiling, the finely rendered face of a young man – her brother. If only they knew he was more than a man – so much more.
The scent-sensitive hairs on the spiderwoman’s legs smelled Slickstone as soon as he entered. She also sensed the stones, and remembered Slickstone’s lightning hands.
Run? Talk? Hide? Faced with a plethora of choices, the spiderwoman froze where she felt most comfortable – in her kitchen. Slickstone had little grasp of the debilitating damage he had done to Morval Seer. He expected her to hate him, and hoped for a fight. Electrocuting the creature would be amusing.
He entered the kitchen. Faint traces of her beauty survived in the eyes and human remnants in her leathery face, but the bulbous body and spread-eagled legs were as hideous as he remembered them. He smiled at her orderly kitchen and her diet of blood and skin – Morval Seer, the nature lover!
The spiderwoman’s eight eyes blinked. Part of her did not know the intruder, but part of her did; within her divided being the spider deferred for the moment to Morval Seer. Slickstone had aged, but the eyes, the set of the jaw, the bloom of the skin and the high brow were unmistakably him. She assumed his cruelty, cleverness and powers were undiminished.
Slickstone gestured at the bottles and jars. ‘Fine work.’
‘Keep away,’ hissed the spiderwoman.
‘My dear Morval, when you’ve waited so long?’
Somewhere in her tangled being Morval Seer felt proud of rejecting him. ‘Keep away!’ The monster cowered, almost pitiful.
Then a faint tremor puffed earth from the ceiling like smoke. Pots and pans played a percussive tune.
‘What’s that?’
‘Turbulence – deeper and older than you can imagine, Veronal Slickstone.’
‘You’d better explain.’ The menace was palpable.
The spiderwoman’s eight eyes registered different emotions, appropriate to the complexities of her make-up. Her voice sounded more vulnerable; the hiss of the animal softened by a human intonation. The effort appeared painful. ‘There is technology and there is Nature. Some activities require an understanding of both –
painting, for example. But your stones are bare technology. They can deform Nature, but Nature wins in the end. Lost Acre faces apocalypse – and your stones cannot save her.’
Slickstone’s temper frayed. ‘What are you blathering about?’ He removed his gloves. A faint spark of lightning played over his fingers.
‘In every millennium Lost Acre faces extinction. Her sustaining forces tire and need renewal. That demands respect for Nature, not abuse.’
The creature’s mind had distinct compartments. Most of th
e time, Morval’s delicate sensibilities could not match the spider’s brutality. Even the gift of speech had been brutalised. However, a small part of its brain remained unpolluted. Here she cherished memories of the countryside, Sir Henry and her brother, and guarded her humanity like a candle. Meanwhile, the spider plotted ridding herself of this hateful human companion.
By a supreme effort, and because the spider had no knowledge of Slickstone, Morval had dominated the initial conversation, but now the spider asserted control. Morval’s decency disappeared. The voice turned sibilant and cunning. ‘Listen, Veronal Slickstone, all is not lost. You have a cage. I want rid of the woman. Release me – and I’ll help you. It is dangerous out there. You’ll
need Ferox.’
So Ferox lived! The weaselman had lived in Lost Acre for centuries before them; he had become Slickstone’s guardian and guide in Lost Acre. Subliminally, Ferox had never left him. He stood guard on Slickstone’s chimneys, his weathervanes, the bonnet of his Rolls Royce, on his slippers and cufflinks, on the arms of his chairs, and many other places besides.
‘Where is he?’
‘Ferox will find you.’
‘How?’
‘As he always did. Ferox is Ferox.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘He will feel the pull of the stones. They made us what we are.’
Slickstone paused. ‘Guard the way in. Kill whoever comes. We have common interests, you and I.’
The spiderwoman blinked. As he left, she considered a strike at the unprotected back – but the spider did not know how to place the stones. Ferox had promised assistance. Nobody trusted Ferox, but a hope was better than nothing. Then there was the other visitor with his promises who had yet to return. She decided on a waiting game.
Sir Veronal had attributed the oppressive atmosphere to the spiderwoman’s kitchen, but when he opened the outer door in the face of a steep bank, he understood the creature’s reference to apocalypse.
Ribbons of light zigzagged through a sky of the deepest grey. The spiderwoman’s house was set into the bank at the forest edge. With the static, the webs around her lair came alive, glimmering like ghosts. Signs of trouble were no less ominous in the meadowland beyond. The grass hung unusually limp, heavy with seed. This was no ordinary storm.
He set out across the sloping meadow. A garish orange light washed the grass and a wind began to blow, increasing in force and veering from one direction to another. He paused to wipe his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Bullying the meadow this way and that, the wind created a shimmering effect – light to shadow, shadow to light. Then he caught something else disturbing the grass: a dark line, heading towards him, sleek and direct. He stood stock-still and waited.
Ferox did not stand up until he reached Sir Veronal. The weasel in him was unmistakable – the face pinched, the snout sharp, the eyes red and the sallow skin blotched with patches of red-brown fur – as indeed was the human in the extended nose, earlobes, fingernails, eyelashes and speaking voice. His face was covered with a scarf, his clothes fashioned from patches of leather.
Ferox bowed to Sir Veronal. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘your visit is well-timed.’
The earth shook, a stronger tremor; they had no time for small talk about their Elizabethan days. A flicker of doubt crossed Slickstone’s mind – how curious that his return to Rotherweird should coincide with Lost Acre’s hour of need. If someone thought he would be Lost Acre’s rescuer, they were wrong – he would plunder the mixing-point for this particular superlative gift and then let the place implode. That way, he would have no rivals.
‘You have a cage. What will you put in it?’ enquired Ferox.
‘Mr Wynter’s last experiment.’
‘Then you have the stones and the book?’
‘I have all that I need.’
‘Then this last experiment worked?’
‘If it’s in the book, it worked.’
‘What does it do?’
‘Get me there and you’ll find out.’
The crown of a tree not far below exploded into flame.
‘We best find shelter until morning,’ said Ferox.
‘I want to go now.’
‘Use the mixing-point in darkness – and a thunderstorm? Again?’
Another fork jagged from horizon to horizon. ‘First light then,’ conceded Slickstone.
‘Master,’ said Ferox with a shallow bow, ending the conversation as he had begun it.
As the light began to fail, it did not feel like Midsummer’s Eve.
By the time they reached the soaring rock face with the cave at its foot, more trees had ignited, the impression of candles enhanced by the descending darkness. Inside the cave, a low fire, skins on the floor and a battered cauldron provided a welcome harbour from the storm. Ferox seasoned a rich stew, which they ate with horn forks. Slickstone did not enquire about the origins of the meat, which he found spicy but wholesome to taste. A twist in the short entrance tunnel muffled the thunder and obscured the lightning. The cave was almost homely.
‘Have you ever seen such a storm before?’ asked Sir Veronal.
‘Once,’ replied Ferox, ‘long ago. We will have different challenges tomorrow.’ He declined to be drawn on what those challenges might be. He watched as Slickstone slipped quickly into deep sleep, throwing the remains of the seasoning onto the fire with mint to mask the dose of Lost Acre’s potently soporific valerian. Long fingers extended like a pickpocket, he lifted the stones with ease. Gathering his spear, he loped off into the dark.
10
Metamorphosis
Salt’s bubble hurtled through a vortex for several hours, a spinning darkness with streaks of ambient light. This gate had none of the instant transportation effects of the tiles. Salt was beginning to fear his journey would never end when, in a blinding change of colour, the bubble lurched into very real weather.
In sepulchral gloom, clouds more black than grey cohered, divided and ran amok, as if every contrary wind was vying for supremacy. Treetops blazed in crazy lines, marking the path of lightning strikes. Thunder growled like distant artillery. Water-courses steamed like broth.
As the bubble plunged, static dancing across its skin, Salt thought of his beloved plants, their leaves scorched, sap dried out and roots starved. There is always seed awaiting rebirth, he reminded himself.
His hectic descent stalled in a corridor of calmer air – Lost Acre’s birdlife had found it too. Thousands of birds, large and small, feathered and leather-winged, the brilliantly coloured and the drab, glided and hovered to avoid the turbulence above and below. Two large predators with clawed wings and eyes like fish peered into the bubble and tapped its exterior with their scissored beaks before losing interest.
By luck or design, this passageway of calm air kissed the summit of Lost Acre’s craggy uplands, Salt’s intended destination. An eerie blood-red, more suited to heralding dusk than dawn, stained the eastern horizon. Even inside the bubble Salt sensed a change of atmosphere: no lightning, no thunder, stillness and silence. The birds vanished too, now preferring to risk shelter in the wreckage of the landscape below.
‘Orelia?’ Salt enquired, belatedly remembering his companion, but there was no reply. To his relief, the rolling peak of Lost Acre’s mountainous rim was still carpeted with the extraordinary plant which he had come to find. He manoeuvred the bubble into a long gentle trajectory and a perfect landing.
Salt had never seen the plant so luxuriant. The leaves had acquired an unexpected leathery texture, perhaps in anticipation of the extreme conditions. He could see no sign of a flower.
On hands and knees, Salt established that the spreading growth belonged to a single specimen, rooted in the shelter of two flat rocks that abutted each other close to the summit. He lay across the higher and peered into the gap between. The leaves and stems below were larger. He felt the air on his face cooling fast, despite the imminence of dawn. Salt rolled up his right sleeve and thrust his arm in, gently probing wi
th his fingers for the casing of a bud or the petals of a flower. The leaves and stems were soft to the touch and without irritants. At the base of the rock he made contact with what felt like a thicker stem, having the unnerving sensation that it was also searching for him. The stem touched his finger and began to twine itself around it.
For half an hour he lay there as the stem unfolded itself and climbed his arm. He dared not move for fear of disturbing this mysterious process, an ordeal in the conditions as snow began to fall, shrouding the back of his body. The rock turned icy-cold, his shoulders ached, his outstretched arm went numb.
At last the plant released him. Gingerly Salt lifted his arm from the crevice. From wrist to well above the elbow the stem wound round, ending in a single bud, its sepals closed tight, the colour of the flower still hidden. Salt stood up. He could see no further than ten paces ahead in the snow. Planning a route was impossible.
‘Lost Acre’s birdlife had found it too.’
Keeping stem and bud from damage, he clambered back in the bubble. Even assuming he had to replicate the events of 1017, there remained the question of timing: the window of opportunity must be small. He had no idea how to return to Rotherweird with the white tile closed; still less did he know, even if he managed that feat, what he would look like and how he would be received. Times were different now – people dismissed old myths as ignorant fancy. The Saxon precedent suggested he should arrive with the Fair in full swing. Deciding that he had a little time, Salt conserved his energy and slept.
*
Orelia’s bubble careered through a much faster wormhole and arrived in Hell itself: deep night with burning trees on one side and rocky uplands on the other, sporadically illuminated by silvery-blue lightning. Lashing rain came and went in perplexingly short intervals. As her craft lurched up and down and side to side, she searched, dangerously close to the ground, for a suitable landing. Only the meadowland made practical sense. The lush vegetation brought the bubble to an almost instant halt, nearly costing Orelia her front teeth. She jumped into grass up to her neck and the wind blew her forward, then back. New phenomena bombarded eyes and ears – the atmospherics, the extraordinary trees, even the grass, with its octagonal seed. To keep focus, she kept muttering, ‘Stop Sir Veronal!’ to herself.
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